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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24751123">if we could do it over again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104'>Engineer104</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Friends to Enemies, Letters, Mutual Pining, Time Skip AU, so like "friends to reluctant enemies to friends", then back to something like friends</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:15:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,393</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24751123</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Annette's first year in Fhirdiad after her time at the Officers' Academy is almost peaceful.</p><p>The next years are not.</p><p>Or: "What if Annette lived in Fhirdiad rather than Dominic during the time skip?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. In Fhirdiad</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I do not know how or why i had this idea and no one but me has asked this question BUT here we are.</p><p>also uh for the sake of...forewarning in case Someone gets their hopes up (you know who you are), Ingrid and Rodrigue won't appear till Part II</p><p>anyway... enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first year in Fhirdiad was fine. She cried when she learned of Dimitri’s execution, and when next she met Mercie at their favorite tea parlor she cried again with her. She wrote letters to Ashe, and Ingrid, and Felix, and Lysithea, and she would’ve written a letter to Dedue if only she knew to where to send it.</p><p>She bore the heartache of failing to convince her father to return home in the year she bought at Garreg Mach. She threw herself into her studies, drinking cheap blends of apple tea to stay awake well into the night, to impress her professors with her work ethic, to convince herself that she was worth something if she achieved an advanced degree in sorcery.</p><p>She listened to news of the war and pretended it wouldn’t affect her or her family though she knew it hurt her friends. Cornelia lowered the flags bearing the lion of Loog from the castle’s ramparts and hung her own flags to the Faerghus Dukedom in their stead. She pretended it didn’t hurt watching a woman she once admired tear down her country.</p><p>But the first year, she learned in the subsequent four, was fine.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Harpstring Moon, 1181</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dear Uncle,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This may come as a surprise to you, but rather than returning to Dominic, I have decided to stay in Fhirdiad to further my studies at the Royal School. I promise I have not made this decision lightly, and I think Mother, at least, will approve that I am making this decision for myself rather than in any poor attempt to convince Father to return to his family. Before you ask, I have also considered the risks involved, and it seems to me that Dominic is in far greater danger from the Empire than Fhirdiad is since it's</em>
  <em> far closer to the border.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>For now, I</em>
  <em>’m staying with Mercie and her father while I find some other arrangement closer to the Royal School; I think I’ve found a nice flat I can rent, and a position as an assistant for one of my old professors so I even have a bit of income and don’t need to rely on an allowance should something happen. Don’t worry, I have it all handled on my end, and if you need my help administering Dominic I can do what I can from a distance.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Also if Mother suggests this might have something to do with a young gentleman, please be assured that she's</em>
  <em> wrong. He’s a scoundrel at best and a villain at worst and has absolutely no interest in courting anyone, much less me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I hope you and Mother are well! </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Love,<br/>
Annette</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Annette doesn’t know it’ll be her last time seeing Felix for years until the next time they meet. She barely even understands why she wakes in the middle of the night, her head jerking upright and the pages of the open book she used as a pillow sticking to her cheek. A yawn splits her face as she realizes she fell asleep studying again, but before she can consider shuffling off to bed rather than simply pillowing her head on her arms a furious pounding sounds from her door.</p><p>Ah, so that’s what woke her. She pushes her chair back and stands, wincing at the stiffness in her spine. There’s an ache in her scalp too, so she tugs the ribbon from her hair and sighs in relief as it spills around her shoulders. She pads towards the door after shrugging on a dressing gown over her nightshirt, swallowing another yawn before she cracks open the door to peek outside.</p><p>Her heart skips a beat in alarm when she finds him there, arms crossed and foot tap-tap-tapping on the landing, his gaze snapping to her. “F-Felix?” she gasps. “What’re you—”</p><p>Felix forces the door open and shoves her aside, but before she can protest or scold him he slams it shut and slides the bolt - with which she never even bothers - in place. “I don’t think I was followed,” he says, as if that’s any sort of greeting. He leans against the door, a grimace crossing his face, and Annette jumps to the worst conclusion.</p><p>“Are you hurt?” she demands. She approaches him, prepared to search him if he’s not forthcoming.</p><p>He lifts his head and stares at her. “What? No, I’m not hurt.” He straightens then and rubs the back of his neck, every so often in the midst of the ensuing silence sneaking a glance at her.</p><p>Annette crosses her arms, her eyes narrowing. “Then what are you doing here?” she wonders. “It’s the middle of the night! You woke me up!”</p><p>“You were asleep?” he says, eyes wide and incredulous. Her breath catches when his thumb skirts across her cheek, but she only glares when his lips tug into the slightest smirk. “Oh, I see, you fell asleep studying.”</p><p>She bats his hand away - though a very large part of her would rather lean into it - at the same time her face warms. “That doesn’t answer my question,” she says.</p><p>“I know, I’m…sorry.” Felix sounds almost chagrined as he says it, which surprises her more than she cares to admit. “I just wanted…I don’t know.”</p><p>She blinks, and maybe it’s the distress written all over his face that makes it difficult for her to muster any worthwhile reply. She reaches for him, her hand hovering over his arm, unsure if she can touch him or why she thinks that might actually help, before lowering it.</p><p>“Then tell me what happened,” Annette says. “Maybe I can help?”</p><p>He shakes his head, but before she can grow annoyed he won’t even give her a chance, he inhales sharply and says, “I’m leaving Fhirdiad.”</p><p>Something in his tone makes her heart race, though he’s come and gone from Fhirdiad often in the year since the war began. Almost always on some Fraldarius business, but he always made time to visit her even if just for an hour or two as he arrived or departed. But now…there’s something different in his tone now.</p><p>“You’re not coming back,” Annette realizes, “are you?”</p><p>“No,” he admits, “I’m not.”</p><p>“Why?” she wonders. She swallows her hurt at the pronouncement, hurt she’s not even sure she’s entitled to; what are they except old classmates or maybe friends? “What happened?”</p><p>“You’ll find out soon enough,” he tells her.</p><p>“Yes, because you’ll tell me,” she insists. Irritation at his reticence flickers within her, but she presses her lips together in an effort to keep her temper. “What’s going on?”</p><p>“No member of my family is exactly welcome in Fhirdiad anymore,” Felix says. He sounds almost…proud of that, which is itself more alarming than his words.</p><p>“What did you do?” Annette demands.</p><p>“It’s not about what <em>I </em>did,” he says. He rakes a hand over his face and laughs oh so bitterly. “Fhirdiad isn’t the capital of the Faerghus Kingdom anymore, Annette.”</p><p>“What does that even mean?”</p><p>“It’s the capital of some nonsense called the Faerghus Dukedom,” Felix tells her, “but it’s as good as an Empire territory with a name like that. Di—the boar’s execution was only the beginning. Anyone who supported him won’t be safe here.”</p><p>“You hardly supported him,” Annette grumbles, but when he flinches regret fills her. “I suppose that…makes sense, why you wouldn’t be coming back.” But even as she says it her chest tightens and a lump sticks in her throat; she doesn’t want to think of never seeing Felix again.</p><p>He looks like he wants to say something else then, his lips parting and his eyes flitting to hers before they flit away. “No, but…if you’re staying, be careful what you do or put in letters.”</p><p>“Why?” she wonders.</p><p>“Cornelia’s a monster, but she isn’t stupid. She’ll keep an eye on anyone who associated with the boar in any way.”</p><p>Annette wants to say she’s not stupid enough to put something sensitive in a letter either, but something in Felix’s eyes gives her pause. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”</p><p>He frowns. “Like what?”</p><p>“Like…I don’t know.” Annette’s shoulders hunch a little, and though it’s a pleasant, almost balmy late-spring evening, a chill washes over her. “I suppose you’ve paid Mercie a visit too?”</p><p>“I think Sylvain did,” Felix says, nodding, “but I can’t shake this…feeling.”</p><p>“What feeling?” She inches a little closer to him and tells herself it’s because he’s warmer, and not because his words alarm her, or because she wants to comfort him or help set his worries at ease.</p><p>“Mercedes’ father is a sycophant,” he tells her. “He’s a bastard, but that’ll keep her safe enough for now.”</p><p>“Are you saying you think <em>I</em><em>’m</em> in danger?” Annette realizes. Her eyes widen, her heart thumping painfully and even faster when Felix gives her a terse nod. “Why would I be? My family’s hardly a threat to Cornelia, unlike yours, and I’m just a student.”</p><p>“Maybe, but…” He cups her face then, and she forgets how to breathe or even think. “Just, please be careful, and don’t do anything foolish.”</p><p>Annette finds enough of her faculties to inhale and throw her arms around his neck. “The same goes for you, you—you absolute villain.”</p><p>He stiffens under her touch, but before she can let him go and let an apology tumble from her lips, his arms wrap around her waist, and he holds her close. He buries his face in her hair, and she feels the ghost of his breath against her neck.</p><p>They’ve never embraced like this before, not with Felix usually so reluctant to let anyone touch him, not with her so unsure where she stands with him. She soaks in his warmth, his solidness, and tries not to think the first time will also be the last.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Wyvern Moon, 1182</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dear Mother,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I have to confess, I am getting a little worried about things in Fhirdiad right now. Just last moon one of the faculty at the Royal School was arrested under suspicion of spreading rumors that Prince Dimitri was still alive. He was released within a few weeks, but it definitely rattled all of us and it took another week for him to be well enough to return to work. There</em>
  <em>’s also a curfew in place, which I suppose I don’t mind, but it means I have to be more efficient about my time during the day, like planning when to shop for essentials and when I should return home from the School.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The Royal School offered me a fellowship I</em>
  <em>’m thinking of accepting, if I don’t leave Fhirdiad and return to Dominic. But I can’t help thinking it’s still best for me to stay here; perhaps I can even convince you to leave Dominic and live here with me? Well, no, I know traveling isn’t very easy right now with all the troops moving within Faerghus, and it’s a wonder and a blessing our letters are still getting through, if a little slowly.</em>
</p><p><em> <strike>If there</strike></em><em><strike>’s anything that frustrates me, it is</strike> </em> <em> Oh, Mother, if only you were here! Then I could tell you what</em><em>’s in my head and in my heart without entrusting it to a letter that may be intercepted. I don’t want to put you in danger just because I want to speak more honestly, and I promised </em> <em> <strike>a friend</strike> </em> <em> an old classmate I</em><em>’d be careful. I just worry things will get worse before they get better, especially if the northern houses refuse to lay down their arms. </em> <em> <strike>I wish I could</strike> </em> <em> It would be nice to walk through Fhirdiad without feeling like a Dukedom soldier is watching my every move, but, well, I guess I just have to make the best of it while I still can!</em></p><p>
  <em>At least I still have time to see Mercie every once in a while. I worry she</em>
  <em>’s chafing under pressure from her father to marry, and if you won’t live with me, Mother, I may just have to convince her to live with me instead!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Please give Uncle my regards. I</em>
  <em>’m thinking of both of you often.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Love,<br/>
Annette</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>“Have you heard from…anyone else lately?” Annette wonders.</p><p>Mercie pulls a pan of small bread rolls from the oven and sets them aside to cool. “From who?” she says, her head tilting to the side.</p><p>“Anyone outside Fhirdiad,” she says, though she really wants to ask about someone in particular. She busies herself kneading her own lump of dough, pushing the heels of her hands into it to blot out any lingering specks of flour.</p><p>“Oh, well, I suppose it has been a while since I received any letters from Ashe or Ingrid,” Mercie admits. She grabs a giant pot by both handles, wobbling a few steps before Annette abandons her dough to help her with it. Together, they hobble out of the kitchen and into the adjacent dining hall, the burden shared between them as they deposit the chowder at the end of the long table.</p><p>The line of people waiting for their meal stretches the length of the hall and out into the chapel, and Annette doesn’t doubt it extends through of the church doors and onto the street. It grows longer every day she helps Mercie and the priests distribute food, and she knows that, the longer this war wears on, it’ll grow longer yet.</p><p>And it’ll be even harder to feed everyone who stands in the queue on blistered feet with their hair in disarray and their clothes threadbare and ragged.</p><p>“What about, um…” Annette licks her lips, unsure if she should ask, sure that Mercie would understand without her having to.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Annie,” Mercie says then. She shoves a ladle into her hands before busying herself filling bowls with chowder. “I haven’t heard from Felix either, and he never wrote to me as much as he did you.”</p><p>The heat prickling at her ears is at odds with the dread coiling in her abdomen. Her grip on the ladle tightens, and she takes a bowl to help Mercie. “I guess I’m just worried,” she admits. “I last saw him a year ago, and I haven’t heard from him since either, and”—she lowers her voice, just in case that Dukedom soldier that likes lingering in the corner of the church during mealtimes is near enough to overhear—”knowing the villain he’ll be in the thick of the fighting.”</p><p>“I know,” Mercie agrees with a sad smile. “I worry about him too, but right now, we’ll help everyone else how we can.”</p><p>“Right,” Annette says, a slight smile poking at her own lips, and maybe that assertion of Mercie’s is why she doesn’t complain when she sends her back to the kitchen for the bread rolls after she nearly knocks over the giant pot of chowder.</p><p>She leaves the church after dark, rushing to her flat in an attempt to make it back before curfew, and before any of the soldiers that patrol the streets by dark have an excuse to bother her. She passes others doing much the same as hers, but for the odd beggar crouching at a street corner or lying down on a blanket, refugees of the war with no home to return to.</p><p>Her chest tightens when one rattles a tin with a single coin sitting in it, and a child with a running nose peeks out from under her thin cloak.</p><p>Annette’s situation is…remarkably cozy. She’s a young woman from a noble family and a student with a paying position at the School of Sorcery, she <em>can</em> spare the coin. She digs through her pockets in search of just one and drops it into the tin.</p><p>“There’s a church a few blocks from here that hands out dinner every evening,” she tells her, clasping her hands together. “And maybe, um, my friend can look after your girl’s cold too.”</p><p>The woman’s eyes, glazed with exhaustion, clear as she clutches the child a little closer. “Thank you,” she says. “Shouldn’t you be g-going home? Getting close to curfew.”</p><p>“Uh, um, yes,” Annette says with a sheepish smile. “I’ll be on my way.” She leaves her there, guilt tugging at her abdomen that she can’t do more, that she’s just a sitting duck in Fhirdiad while the war rages on beyond its walls.</p><p>Maybe…she <em>can</em> do something?</p><p>Just as the thought occurs to her the hair on the back of her neck prickles. Tension makes her spine rigid, and she glances over her shoulder, down the shadowy, nearly empty street, only to find no one but other pedestrians trying to hurry home. Still, she quickens her pace, her heart racing with the rhythm of her footsteps. She clutches her cloak a little closer to her.</p><p>The castle tower chimes when the curfew begins. Annette’s lungs ache as she jogs a little faster, wishing, not for the first time, that she trained as much as she did while at the Officers’ Academy. Just one more block, she tells herself when fear tries to freeze her limbs. Just a few more paces and—</p><p>Her toes stick in a crack in the paving stone, and Annette tumbles. Her heart jumps into her throat as she falls and lands on her hands and knees. The ground cuts at her palms and tears at her skirts, and the collision sends a shock up her arms and legs.</p><p>“Ugh,” she groans as she tries to stumble to her feet, only to fall over backwards instead. She rubs her palms together, wincing at the sting and trying to get the grit off her scraped skin.</p><p>“Are you all right, Miss?” A man stands over her, offering her his hand.</p><p>Annette, worried that she’ll just fall again if she tries to stand on her own power, accepts and lets him tug her to her feet. “Thank you,” she says as she brushes dust off her dress. Her heart still hammers against her ribs, wary that she’s out after curfew and that people in Fhirdiad have been arrested and detained for less, but she doesn’t want to take another step lest she trip once more.</p><p>“Of course.” The man - she can’t see his face for a lamp shining too brightly - nods. “Do take care on your way home, Miss Dominic; you wouldn’t want Lady Cornelia to think you’re up to something untoward.” With that he offers her a smart, shallow bow and leaves before she can ask him how he knows her name.</p><p>It’s not till Annette slams the door of her flat shut and slides the bolt in place and lights a candle with trembling fingers that she realizes the man who helped her wore the uniform of a Dukedom soldier.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Pegasus Moon, 1183</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dear Felix,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I haven</em>
  <em>’t heard from you in a while! And I know you warned me to be careful what I put in a letter, so I’ll have you know I’m being extra careful right now. I know too that the care must be why you haven’t written to me, or replied to anything I’ve sent you, but it’s still cruel of you not to send word that you’re all right every once in a while. Or, well, as all right as anyone of us is in the middle of a war! Can you tell I’m getting nervous? Because I’m getting nervous.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Anyway, I</em>
  <em>’m writing this time because I heard you were injured while engaging Dukedom troops in Galatea. To be honest, they’re only rumors, something or other about Duke Fraldarius’ son getting lanced through the abdomen—well, it’s a gruesome rumor, and I just want to know why you think you can take on a cavalier as someone who prefers to fight on foot! And surely you weren’t fighting alone without the support of a battalion again, were you? And what if there’d been a mage there, you know you’re not very good at taking magical hits even if you’re good at dodging them. And—fine, I trust you when it comes to fighting, it’s just that I’m worried, and I haven’t heard from you in over a year, and maybe I do miss you enough that I’d risk saying so in a letter.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If you don</em>
  <em>’t want to reply to reassure me like the heartbreaking scoundrel you are, at least start spreading a rumor you’re alive and well, even if it’s just that you killed a hundred Dukedom soldiers singlehandedly.</em>
</p><p><em> <strike>Yours truly,</strike> </em> <em><br/>
Annette</em></p><p>
  <em>P.S. It</em>
  <em>’s your birthday this moon isn’t it? Happy birthday! Well, I guess it’s hard to have a happy birthday while you’re fighting, and I remember you sulking on your birthday at the Officers’ Academy rather than letting us try making it a good day for you…but! I’ll stop rambling now. Take care to live to the next one, Felix.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>With the term winding down in just a moon, Annette finds herself at a crossroads: she can accept a junior faculty position at the Royal School, or she can take her degree and return to Dominic where it’ll be all but useless.</p><p>(Or, in some distant, dark, desperate, <em>angry</em> part of her mind, she thinks of absconding to Fraldarius.)</p><p>It’s a decision that’s plagued her since her professor took her aside and told her to consider, but she’s no closer to making up her mind than she was when she left his office.</p><p>(Maybe it would be easier if she still had some contact with Felix.)</p><p>She returns to her flat with her mind in a fog, a few moments after the start of curfew. Her heavy bag thunks against her desk when she drops it, and she shuffles around in search of a candle and her kettle to make tea before throwing herself into a few final assignments.</p><p>A book snaps shut, and she’s halfway through apologizing to a classmate for forgetting to meet her for a study session before she remembers where she is.</p><p>Inside her flat, with the door shut and locked, where she lives alone.</p><p>“I always thought Sir Ansel Gaspard had a poor understanding of the fundamentals,” a deep yet feminine voice intrudes on the cloud in Annette’s mind. “It is surprising that a professor at a school as widely reputed as the Royal School of Sorcery would assign his book as a reading.”</p><p>Annette turns slowly, her heart beating in her throat and her fingers curling into fists at her side. She calls her magic from the reservoir inside her so it lies in wait at her fingertips when she faces the intruder in her flat.</p><p>A woman perches in the chair in the corner, her pale orange hair long and loose over her shoulders. She rests an elbow on the arm of the chair, her cheek on her fist almost casually, and holds up the text she just maligned in her other hand. She smiles when Annette’s wide eyes land on her.</p><p>“W-what are you doing inside my flat?” Annette demands. “And who are you?”</p><p>The woman stands and meanders towards her. She takes a step back on reflex, but the woman only sets the book on her desk before returning to the chair. “Do you really not recognize me, Miss Dominic?” she wonders. “A shame, I could’ve sworn we met once when you were”—her hand hovers just above her hips—”about this big. You were so delighted too, said you wanted to be a great mage just like me.”</p><p>Annette’s fingernails dig into her palms. “L-Lady Cornelia?” When the woman smirks, a rush of hatred and hot anger wash over her. Magic fills her, and she siphons it into something useful as a glyph flashes before her and under her feet.</p><p>“I don’t think you want to do that, dear,” Cornelia says.</p><p>The wind lifts Annette’s hair, makes the candle flame flicker and scatter shadows and her feeble wooden furniture creak.</p><p>But Cornelia looks unruffled, not even when her dress flutters around her legs, and instead just says, “By all means. You’ll exhaust yourself for nothing and only harm your friends.”</p><p>Annette falters, and her glyphs flicker out. “What?”</p><p>“Let’s talk, shall we, Miss Dominic?” Cornelia sits almost comfortably in her chair, under the eye of an angry, annoyed sorcerer that hates her. “I’ve been keeping track of your progress at the Royal School, you see.”</p><p>Every muscle in her body stiffens while her stomach twists about itself with an anxiety she hasn’t felt since Imperial troops invaded Garreg Mach. “Why would you do that?” she asks. “I’m not—I’m nobody.”</p><p>“I disagree,” Cornelia says with a smile. “To be fair, your uncle and father are nobodies, but you have…potential.”</p><p>Her praise, poisoned as it is, fails to warm Annette and only serves to make her skin prickle. “Th-thank you,” she says in as scathing a tone as she can manage, “but I don’t see how your insulting my uncle and father is much of a compliment for me.”</p><p>“Oh, I suppose it’s not,” Cornelia concedes. “Your father is a failure—”</p><p>Annette flinches but consoles herself with a glare.</p><p>“—and your uncle is a weakling. Neither of them has much hope of standing against the Dukedom.”</p><p>“My uncle hasn’t,” Annette protests quickly, because the last thing she wants is to endanger her family through some stupid thing she says.</p><p>“That much is true,” Cornelia allows with an indulgent nod, “but that isn’t what concerns me.”</p><p>“Then why are you here?” she demands yet again. The longer she lingers, the more Annette frets. She might actually be sick with how her stomach flips like she rides a Pegasus into battle.</p><p>Did she somehow intercept the letter she dared send to Felix? Oh, she just had to know if he was <em>hurt</em> or not…</p><p>“You graduate in less than two moons’ time, do you not?” Cornelia asks. When Annette gives her a terse nod, she says, “I only have a suggestion for how you might employ your skills.”</p><p>“Well, unless that suggestion is worthwhile—”</p><p>“Oh, it will be,” Cornelia promises, and this time when she smirks it’s not the smirk of a lazy cat scrutinizing its squirming prey but that of a cat that’s already eaten its fill. She stands, further toying with her, and paces around the small room. Annette holds her breath as she rounds her, tries to resist the urge to reach for her magic again - she’d be doing Faerghus and all of Fodlan a favor! - while she makes her slow, deliberate way to the hearth.</p><p>She casts a simple Fire spell, igniting the wood and coals within, before retreating. “There,” she says. “Perhaps now you’ll stop your trembling.”</p><p>Heat engulfs the room - Annette didn’t even notice she shivered, though she doubts it was for the cold - as Cornelia resumes her seat.</p><p>“I suppose there’s no sense in beating around anymore,” she says. She clasps her hands neatly in her lap, the picture of a refined court lady despite the war she’s visited on Annette’s home, and continues, “I am inviting you to join the Faerghus Dukedom’s army as an officer.”</p><p>Her jaw drops and her head spins, but somehow Annette keeps her footing…though not without bracing a hand on her desk. “D-did I hear you right?” she says. “You can’t possibly want<em> me</em> in your army when I—”</p><p>“When you what, dear?” Cornelia wonders with a tilt of her perfectly trimmed eyebrow.</p><p>Annette bites her tongue and curses herself for a fool who would give herself away to the last person she ought to. “Nothing,” she says in a hurry, “but I still don’t understand why you would ask me.”</p><p>“It’s quite simple.” Cornelia examines her manicured fingernails before glancing back at her. “You are a powerful sorcerer in your own right and any lord would be lucky to have you in their service. By preempting any other offers you might receive upon your graduation, I deprive my—I’m sorry, <em>our</em> enemies of a valuable resource.” When Annette can only squirm, with her blood rushing past her ears and drowning out the sound of her own heartbeat, she simpers, “It’s rather like a suitor’s proposal, isn’t it? If you wed one army, you can’t wed any of the rest, and my army gets…jealous.”</p><p>Annette tries to swallow the fear trying to claw its way up her throat; why does it…feel as if Cornelia anticipated any of the tentative plans she made as her term began to wind down? Her hands clasp together, but she tries to keep from wringing them lest she give something else - something incriminating - away.</p><p>“I-I thank you for your generous offer, Lady Cornelia,” Annette says in as steady a voice as she can, “but I must decline. I’m actually planning on taking a junior faculty position in—”</p><p>Cornelia stands in one swift motion, and for a heartbeat she wonders if she imagines the scent of dark magic tinting the air, or if it’s just smoke trickling from the hearth. “Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear, Miss Dominic,” she says, “but that was not an offer.”</p><p>“I-Is an invitation not an offer?” Annette wonders.</p><p>Cornelia’s smile sends a shiver of foreboding up her spine. “Not this one.”</p><p>She juts her chin out and shoves away her trepidation. “Well, I still don’t accept. You’re wasting your time while I have other plans.”</p><p>She sighs and approaches her. Annette freezes, only for her to step past her and pick up a stack of papers on her desk. “I found these while I, ah, waited for you to return,” she says. She picks up the first and starts reading, “<em>Dearest Annette, I am afraid it would be less than prudent for you to return to Dominic with the Empire on our doorstep. I implore you to stay where you are safest in Fhirdiad rather than chance a journey west</em>.” She lowers the letter and narrows her eyes. “I suppose you’ve already read this letter from your mother and won’t need me to read on.”</p><p>“What does my mother have to do with your…invitation?” Annette says when she finds the wherewithal to speak.</p><p>“Maybe nothing, maybe everything,” Cornelia tells her, “but she is correct. A journey from Fhirdiad would be quite dangerous, regardless if your destination is west or…north.”</p><p>Annette <em>knows</em> she isn’t imagining the emphasis she places on “north”, but she bites her lip and suppresses a flinch.</p><p>“Surely you understand the magnitude of what I’m seeking to give you, Miss Dominic,” Cornelia explains as she rifles through the rest of the letters in her hands. “You are a known, ah, former associate of His Highness, and the Dukedom has no reason to trust you or any of your classmates from the Officers’ Academy. Indeed, at least a few of them are in open defiance of the Dukedom, and…ah, yes, you have been in contact with them.”</p><p>She stiffens, her heart racing, but argues, “Not since—not since you lowered the Faerghus Kingdom’s flags.”</p><p>“Yes, I see that.” Cornelia flips through a few letters, an eyebrow raised. “The last letters you received from the Fraldarius and Galatea brats are dated from over a year ago.” Annette’s chest tightens at the reminder at the same time Cornelia clicks her tongue and frowns.</p><p>If she was a little more naive she might think her sympathetic.</p><p>“Do you not get lonely in Fhirdiad, Miss Dominic?” Cornelia wonders, as if she cares. “Your family in the west, your friends fighting in the name of a dead disgraced prince…have you never wished you could join them?”</p><p>Annette knows it’s a trap, knows not to answer, yet still she snaps, “They’re not all gone.”</p><p>“Oh, my mistake.” Cornelia smiles, and Annette has the creeping sense she just fell into a trap. “There’s Miss Martriz, yes? The merchant’s daughter trying so hard to feed Fhirdiad’s weak little invaders?”</p><p>She grimaces, unsure how long she can keep the fright off her face or conceal the tension holding her hostage. “Just tell me what you’re getting at,” she says.</p><p>“All right, I suppose I can do that much for you,” Cornelia agrees. She sets the stack of letters back on her desk and says, “It’s simple, really. If you join my army, it will have no reason to march on Dominic.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Continue to resist my offer,” she continues as if Annette doesn’t gape at her with wide, horrified eyes, “and my army and the Empire’s will mow down your family’s territory until there’s nothing left of House Dominic. And if that’s not enough, your dear friend Mercedes von Martriz is right here in Fhirdiad with a father who’s very, very eager to wed her to any noble he can use to curry favor, so do bear that in mind while making a decision, won’t you, dear?”</p><p>Annette steps away, though with nowhere to run, no true decision to make, her legs freeze her to the spot. Her heart beats wildly, and she curses herself for ever being foolish enough to think Fhirdiad safe. She should’ve just traveled home after the Empire invaded Garreg Mach, should’ve begged Felix to take him with her when he admitted he would never come back, should’ve—</p><p>But it doesn’t matter anymore now, does it? And she’ll be damned if she lets Cornelia hold anymore power over her.</p><p>“You should know too,” Cornelia says before Annette can muster her voice for a reply, “that I will have people <em>I</em> trust keeping an eye on you. Should I suspect you of spying on the rebels’ behalf, I will consider it as good as if you insisted on refusing my invitation tonight. Do you understand?”</p><p>Annette clears her throat in an effort to loosen the words sticking there. Her heart pounds as ponderously as the bell that chimes at curfew, as heavily as a war drum, weighed down with all her regrets that keep piling on her. But she makes sure to meet Cornelia’s piercing gaze when she nods and says, “A-all right, I accept your invitation.”</p><p>“There now.” Cornelia crosses her arms and appraises her. “Was that so difficult?”</p><p>Yes, Annette thinks, and she’s positive Cornelia knows it.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Verdant Rain Moon, 1183</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dear Mercie,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I</em>
  <em>’ll probably never send this letter, so I think I can be as honest as I like in it (assuming one of Cornelia’s spies isn’t reading over my shoulder right now). I hate fighting for her so much, Mercie. I hate that I feel like I have no choice because she’s holding you and my family hostage against me. I’m so sorry, I hope that if we ever meet again you’ll understand why I had to do this when I explain it to you. Well, knowing you, of course you’ll understand, you never take anything personally even when you should.</em>
</p><p><em>I</em><em>’m scared too, Mercie. I’m being sent north with the army fighting House Fraldarius and House Gautier. It’s bad enough I’ve been fighting rebels whose cause I hold dear to my heart, but now I risk coming face to face with our old classmates. What if I’m forced to fight Felix or Sylvain? I suppose I can think of all the times they annoyed me, but…no, that’s stupid, they were my friends, even if they did annoy me </em> <em> <strike>and Felix is a villain</strike> </em> <em>. I think I worry most about fighting Felix <strike>because I think I</strike> because all reports say he</em><em>’s always on the front lines or in the thick of the fighting. On one hand I’m relieved that rumor I heard moons ago proved false (or that he at least healed from those wounds) but on the other…I don’t think I’d be able to do it, Mercie, even for my family.</em></p><p>
  <em>Is it too late to wish I returned home when I still had the chance? Or would some other threat have taken me away from my family?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I hope you</em>
  <em>’re well, Mercie, or at least as well as anyone can be in this war.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>All my love,<br/>
Annie</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Enemies surround Annette, enemies that direct her to fight an army she wishes were her allies. The angry shouts of men and women and their battle cries, the neighing of distressed horses and Pegasuses, the clashing of steel weapons against armor and wooden shields, and the clapping of Thunder spells the instant after lightning strikes all drown out her commander’s voice ordering them to deploy.</p><p>Energy hums within her and flows to her fingertips, her magic never far out of reach these days. The motions are all too familiar from moons of missions at the Officers’ Academy, but unlike then no righteousness drives her actions, only Cornelia’s threats and promises should she fail to maintain some semblance of loyalty to a cause she resents.</p><p>And when Annette spots the blue banners bearing the Crest of Fraldarius, she fears the worst.</p><p>When she fights, she fights for her life rather than for the cause Cornelia made her a pawn to. That’s how she tries to justify it to herself. Annette doesn’t want to die, and what better way to retaliate than to survive every battle until there are no more left to fight and then - and only then - can she escape another’s power over her. The frustration at her own impotence drives her, makes it easier to call and siphon tempests against soldiers she’d sooner fight alongside than against and drown out the storm of guilt raging in her chest.</p><p>A Pegasus knight wheeling towards her falls to an Excalibur she unleashes, and Annette can’t stop hearing her scream as Ingrid’s. She blows away an archer’s arrows before they can strike true through her chest, and when Wind slices at and tears his light armor and flesh open, Annette closes her eyes against a sudden swell of tears for fear she’s killed Ashe. Every armored man atop a horse jeers like Sylvain, every mage with sparks flying in her wake Lysithea, the priest who emits a healing glow Mercie, the knight in heavy armor raising an ax high above his head Dedue…</p><p>Annette kills them all, if only so they can’t kill her first.</p><p>But when her strength fades and her magic diminishes, she falters. A pit of despair in her abdomen weakens her as much as her persistent casting, so when a feeble Wind spell crashes uselessly against an enemy’s shield despite her Crest activating, she falls to her knees and awaits the killing blow.</p><p>She deserves it for daring to raise arms against her countrymen, doesn’t she?</p><p>It never falls.</p><p>The chaos and cacophony of battle fade away when the swordsman - it <em>can</em><em>’t</em> be him…can it? - demands, “Do you surrender?”</p><p>Annette’s heart skips a beat, but despite her fear she finds the wherewithal to wonder, “Why?”</p><p>And then she glances up as he sighs and says, “Because if you don’t, I’ll have to kill you instead.”</p><p>Her chest tightens, and she lowers her head, swallowing a sob because Felix is the last person she wants to see her cry.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. In Fraldarius</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's a quiet winter in Fraldarius, but Felix has little reason to be bored with a certain prisoner of war on his mind.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yeah i have no excuse for how long i left this BUT i have Part 2 here right now! Hope you like it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Harpstring Moon, 1183</em>
</p>
<p><em> <strike>Dear</strike> </em> <em> Annette,</em></p>
<p>
  <em>I received your letter and while I was</em>
  <em>…glad for it, you need to be more careful what you send. Even just sympathizing with “rebels” can get you captured or worse; how do you not get that?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Perhaps it's </em>
  <em>unfair of me to accuse you, but I just. Please don’t write again. I’ll be fine, my wounds weren’t so grievous as that I was forced to sit out the next skirmish no matter how much everyone from my old man to his steward insisted.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In truth, I worry more about you trapped in Fhirdiad than I do about myself or anyone else fighting Dukedom troops. I know the city is relatively stable, but it was the first place Cornelia brought to heel and she has the most direct influence there. Several of our spies there have gone silent too, and we have reports from one that her partner was captured and she has not heard any news from him, nor have we been able to ascertain his fate. At least outside Fhirdiad the danger is obvious, and before you ask my old man</em>
  <em>’s canny enough he’s already identified a few spies, though rather than arresting them he’s feeding them false information to report back to Cornelia which is…well, he’s not an entirely daft commander and there’s a reason the old king called him the Shield of Faerghus.</em>
</p>
<p><em>I think, after writing this, I won</em><em>’t risk you further trouble by sending this letter, so maybe I can speak a little more freely: I still think about the last time I was in Fhirdiad and I came to your flat to say goodbye. I very nearly asked you to come with me, and as we hear worse news from Fhirdiad, I wish I had. I just worry, since you were a classmate of the boar’s and called him a friend, and your own </em> <em> <strike>bastard</strike> </em> <em> father opposes Cornelia, that she</em><em>’ll have reason to hurt or target you, and without any friends of your own in the city (Mercedes doesn’t count, she’s as powerless as you) you make an easy target.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Don</em>
  <em>’t do anything to bring attention to yourself.</em>
</p>
<p><em> <strike>Yours,</strike> </em> <em><br/>Felix</em></p>
<p>
  <em>P.S. I suppose I should wish you a happy birthday too? And you would</em>
  <em>’ve graduated from the School last moon, right? Well, you’ll never see this, but congratulations.</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>The battle ends in a stalemate when the Dukedom commander calls a retreat. They flee with their standards held high while Felix watches with a curious sort of detachment. There’s no flash of triumph at another battle survived this time, nothing but the sharp stabbing in his abdomen where a horse kicked him (and probably cracked a few ribs) or the dull ache in his chest when he thinks of the prisoner whose surrender he personally accepted.</p>
<p>The air is thick with the smell of lightning and corpses already rotting with nary a stray breeze to blow any of it away. It’s strange how the scent of battle lingers longest even after the bodies themselves are recovered and buried in mass graves.</p>
<p>It’s a long, slow march back to the castle, only a few leagues away. His feet try to resist his effort to lift them - he gave up his horse to a couple men too injured to walk but well enough to ride - but he keeps on.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to feel good about surviving when his orders led to so many of the men and women that serve - <em>served</em> - House Fraldarius…not.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” he admits to Ingrid, who plods along on foot beside him leading a Pegasus too exhausted to fly, “it would’ve been better to let them besiege us.” Felix gave the order to engage the Dukedom troops before they could surround the castle, to put them off before they could settle in for a long siege, and if he hadn’t been so…hasty with the command they could’ve held out until winter, fewer soldiers of their own would’ve lost their lives meaninglessly, and Annette—</p>
<p>“Do you want my honest opinion, Felix?” Ingrid interrupts his thoughts, and for once he’s grateful for the distraction she provides.</p>
<p>He wrinkles his nose and retorts, “You’ll give it to me anyway.”</p>
<p>“Well, I supposed it would be polite to ask first,” she says, “but I think you were right to give the order. We don’t know that they would’ve retreated by winter if they did try and besiege us, and if it came to them storming the castle, even more people might’ve died.” She rests her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off. “Don’t dishonor the soldiers who <em>did</em> die today by second-guessing their sacrifice.”</p>
<p>Anger - a familiar, <em>easy</em> emotion he seizes upon - rises within him, so he snaps, “<em>Dishonor</em>? That’s the most foolish thing I’ve heard, even from you.” He picks up his pace, suppressing a wince when even just taking a breath wracks his chest with pain, and leaves her and the whole army his old man made the inane decision to give him command of behind.</p>
<p>Upon filing through the castle gates - and after fresh scouts ascertained no Dukedom troops followed to reengage them - Felix lingers outside. His hand rests on the hilt of his sword in a guard position, and though exhaustion drags at his feet and hunger gnaws at his stomach, he has other tasks besides rest to see to.</p>
<p>The train of prisoners arrives last, even after the wounded in need of treatment. His gaze roves over the face of each captive, his heart thumping painfully until they land on the one he looks for, the one he so desperately wants to see yet wishes stayed far away.</p>
<p>Rumors of a sorcerer with hair of flame and spells that raged like hurricanes followed in the Dukedom army’s wake. Felix hadn’t dared to believe they spoke of her, and yet he wishes he could mistake the shackled woman before him as anyone but Annette. When he faced her in the midst of a raging battle, any trace of anger he might’ve felt at her betrayal trickled out of him as she crumpled to the ground, sweat beading her too-pale face, spent of magic and strength and whatever will to survive spurred her to slay scores of his family’s soldiers.</p>
<p>Now she hobbles along as quickly as the heavy shackles binding her wrists allow, her eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, her freckles standing out against her too-pale face and gait unsteady. He swallows any sympathy he might have, any regret that insists on making itself known, and reminds himself that regardless of any mercy he showed her, she’s still an enemy.</p>
<p>Annette’s gaze snaps to him for an instant before flicking away again, but it’s enough he has to tear his own away.</p>
<p>Is Felix to blame? He knew he should’ve asked - or <em>insisted</em> - she leave Fhirdiad with him two years ago, so does the result of his reticence march before him?</p>
<p>She gasps when she stumbles, tripping over air as she’s always been wont to do, and without thinking his hand catches her elbow to steady her. Her eyes widen landing on his face again, but he can’t meet them.</p>
<p>He’s angry she fights for the enemy, he tells himself, and that’s how he stiffens his resolve and lets her go rather than tugging her closer into his arms. “Watch your step,” he tells her.</p>
<p>Annette jerks away from him and gives him a stiff nod, and he watches her disappear into the castle to a dungeon cell.</p>
<p>If he ever fantasized about her visiting, it was never for this.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <em>Horsebow Moon, 1183</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Father,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I still wonder at your decision to leave me in command while you traveled to Gautier, but it</em>
  <em>’s no matter now. We engaged a force of Dukedom troops a fortnight ago before they could settle in for a long siege, and it ended in their retreat from the area. Doubtless they’ll return once they finish licking their wounds, perhaps in greater numbers, so I hesitate to call it a victory. For now though I’ve bought us some time to regroup.</em>
</p>
<p><em>Sir Gustave is as useful as ever. I do not understand why he bothers using Fraldarius as his home base when rumors of <strike>the boar</strike></em><em><strike>’s</strike> </em> <em> His Highness</em><em>’ survival come from further south. Is it simply because you agree with and fund his foolishness? We’d be better served making sure our own living people are fed in the midst of the war, especially with this autumn’s harvest looking so abysmal, rather than chasing a ghost.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>I have other news. Among the prisoners we took at this last skirmish was <strike>Ann</strike> Sir Gustave</em>
  <em>’s daughter. We’d heard rumors she fought for the Dukedom, but this is the first time they proved true. Right now she’s a hostage, and if need be maybe she’d make a useful one against Baron Dominic, but in this I’ll defer to you. I just ask you not to ask Sir Gustave what he thinks for fear his devotion to a dead king blinds him to anything else worth protecting.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Felix Hugo Fraldarius</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>With his old man due to return to Fraldarius any day and Ingrid already on her way back to Galatea, Felix decides he’s put off speaking with Annette long enough. Knowing her - though he ordered her moved into a guest bedroom rather than left in a dungeon cell - she’ll have gone stir crazy for lack of anything to keep her busy.</p>
<p>He’s not so foolish to believe she’ll want to see him, but he needs to see her, if only to discuss her fate.</p>
<p>She’s been quiet since her capture too, and that, if nothing else, almost…worries him.</p>
<p>“Anything new?” he asks the guard posted at her door.</p>
<p>The guard straightens - Felix scowls; had he been dozing on the job? - and throws up a salute. “Nothing new, milord,” he says. “There were some, ah, thumps inside earlier, but when we checked she was just reading one of the books Miss Galatea sent for her.”</p>
<p>Felix frowns; something about Ingrid, of all people, visiting Annette doesn’t sit right with him. “Has anyone else come by?” he wonders, because the last person he wants seeing her before he has a chance to speak with her is her—</p>
<p>“No, milord,” the guard replies. “You told us not to let anyone in to visit her without your permission, right?”</p>
<p>“Ingrid didn’t have my permission,” he says through gritted teeth. He almost wishes she lingered a little longer so he could give her grief for it.</p>
<p>“With all due respect, milord, Miss Galatea never entered the room,” the guard tells him with an irritatingly indulgent smile, as if he addresses a petulant child rather than his commander. “She only delivered a few books to us to give her.”</p>
<p>“Right, well, I’m here to visit her now,” Felix says, “so if you please…” He waves the guard out of the way before stiffening his spine in an effort to steel his resolve.</p>
<p>His heart thumps painfully as he rests his hand on the doorknob. When the cool metal doesn’t shock or bite him, he turns it and enters the room.</p>
<p>It’s darker inside than he expects, and Felix has to blink a few times before his eyes adjust enough to see more than just the silhouettes and shadows of furniture: a desk, a plush armchair he thinks once belonged to his mother, a bed, a wardrobe…</p>
<p>Annette sits with her bare feet up on the armchair, a candle burning on the nearby desk and a book open in her lap. A half-eaten dinner tray sits on the desk, and even in the low light Felix wonders if she looks too pale.</p>
<p>He shuts the door behind him, only for her to look up, look down at her book, then look up again with widening eyes.</p>
<p>The book snaps shut as she stands, her posture as stiff and guarded as his, and Felix realizes he has no idea what to say.</p>
<p>Annette decides for him.</p>
<p>“You didn’t knock,” she observes. She clutches the book to her chest and scowls. “I guess captives don’t have the privilege of privacy.”</p>
<p>Felix can’t muster any surprise at her combativeness, not when she once barged through his bedroom door and insisted she’d hate him “forever and ever”. But if he suspected she lied before, it must certainly be the case now and…no more than he deserves.</p>
<p>“What were you doing with the Dukedom army, Annette?” he wonders before he loses his nerve.</p>
<p>Annette’s scowl falters, and she seems to shrink and collapse in on herself. “Fighting for them, obviously,” she mumbles, her eyes downcast.</p>
<p>“Why?” Felix insists, because if there’s anything he needs to know, to understand from her, it’s this. “I thought you were loyal to the Faerghus <em>Kingdom</em>.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t reply, doesn’t even look at him. “Does it matter?” she asks instead. Any trace of defiance - however little - vanishes from her. “I’m a hostage now, and I was as good as a hostage in Fhirdiad. I just didn’t know it yet.”</p>
<p>It’s difficult to muster any irritation, much less rage, when she sounds so defeated. Remorse mingles with it, pushing it even further away, and Felix rakes a hand over his face and sighs through his nose. “I—”</p>
<p>“Why did you accept my surrender?” Annette wonders. “You…you’re the last person I would’ve expected to do that.”</p>
<p>“I…don’t know,” he confesses, but his mind flits to all the people they’ve lost since this bloody war started, to the b—to Dimitri, to his foolish philandering uncle.</p>
<p>Maybe, when he saw Annette with her head bowed and her strength spent, he didn’t want to lose anyone else, enemy or not.</p>
<p>“You’re as awful as ever,” she retorts, and when he looks at her again she’s turned her back to him. “What about your, um, your injuries?”</p>
<p>He blinks, startled by the abrupt change of subject. His thoughts flash back to the letter he never sent, stuffed into a desk drawer where no one, much less his old man, can discover it. “I’m fine now,” he says. “That was moons ago.”</p>
<p>“No, from…this battle,” Annette says. She glances over her shoulder at him with a little furrow in her brow. “You were walking funny afterward.”</p>
<p>“W—oh,” Felix remembers. He rests a hand over his abdomen, where the ache of a horse’s hoof colliding with it is little more than a memory. “It was just a few broken ribs,” he explains. “I’m healed from that now too.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>They lapse into silence awkward enough Felix’s skin prickles with discomfort. It’s almost alien considering how they last saw each other two years ago, when she hugged him tighter than anyone dared, when an unfamiliar urgency to see her one more time before he left for who knew how long gripped him.</p>
<p>When he hesitated to ask her to leave with him.</p>
<p>“What do you want from me anyway?” Annette disturbs the silence at last. “It’s very kind of you not to let me rot in a dungeon”—even he can tell sarcasm drips from her tone—”but that doesn’t mean you have to deign to visit me.”</p>
<p>He shuffles his feet, for once careful to weigh his words, before saying, “Of course I do. You’re a noble hostage, and I have to figure out what to do with you.”</p>
<p>“So you…haven’t yet?” She faces him fully again but with no less stiffness in her frame.</p>
<p>Felix scratches the back of his neck and admits, “Not yet. I’m not exactly…accustomed to taking prisoners.”</p>
<p>“Where’s your father?” Annette wonders. “I’m sure he’ll have loads of advice.”</p>
<p>His jaw twitches as he tries not to succumb to a flicker of irritation by scowling. “He should be on his way back from Gautier,” he says.</p>
<p>“That explains…so much,” she says, laughing. “No wonder you ambushed the Dukedom army; I doubt Lord Rodrigue would’ve done something so, so—”</p>
<p>“Foolish?” Felix offers.</p>
<p>“Daring.” She smiles ever so slightly.</p>
<p>Something warm unfurls in his chest, the heat in his cheeks matching. He covers his face to hide it, because now is <em>not</em> the time, and grumbles, “Well, I guess we can always ransom you back to your family.”</p>
<p>Annette sucks in a breath. “I don’t think…that’s a good idea.”</p>
<p>“Why not?” He crosses his arms, sure he’s regained his composure, and appraises her. “It’s the middle of a war so we’re always short on funds, and your family hasn’t offered any troops to Cornelia.”</p>
<p>“But…you don’t understand,” Annette says, and the trace of desperation in her voice gives him pause.</p>
<p>“Then help me understand,” he says. “What aren’t you telling me?”</p>
<p>“When I said I was as good as a h-hostage in Fhirdiad,” she explains without looking at him, “that wasn’t strictly true.”</p>
<p>“What are you talking about?” His mind whirls with conflicting thoughts, his chest with conflicting emotions. Is she or isn’t she loyal to the army from which he captured her?</p>
<p>“I’m not the hostage,” Annette says. “My family is.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>She clasps her hands together, wincing when the book she held slips from her arms but making no move to retrieve it. “Cornelia threatened them if I didn’t join her army,” she says, grimacing. “She threatened them, and she threatened Mercie, because she knew that I was…she knew I was…sympathetic…towards the rebels’ cause.” Her resolve steels then, and she looks more like the Annette he knew before, the Annette he fell—the Annette from the Academy. “That’s why you can’t ransom me to my family,” she insists. “If you do, I worry she might see that as a betrayal and have a reason to retaliate.”</p>
<p>So there it is. Felix’s hand closes around the hilt of his sword, though he’s not so foolish as to think this is a dilemma he can solve by waving it around no matter how much he wishes it. The closest thing he can imagine is driving a blade through Cornelia’s and every single one of her noble sycophants’ chests, but until he finds that chance he’s stuck using his head to puzzle through…far too many problems.</p>
<p>Disgust twists in his gut, and for a moment he actually feels nauseous and unsteady on his feet. Maybe it’s how Annette’s looking at him, her expression so sad and distressed when he can’t do anything about it, maybe it’s because he knows how all this could’ve been avoided if he only asked or even <em>begged</em> her to leave Fhirdiad with him.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he tells her, and like a coward he runs.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <em>Wyvern Moon, 1183</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Sylvain,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You</em>
  <em>’re a fool, you know that? You need to learn to watch your damn back, you’re lucky my old man was there to heal you. If you won’t do it, then at least find someone you trust to do it for you. Why is that so difficult for you of all people to understand? Next time we meet I’m putting you through your paces, and you’re not allowed to talk to any girls until you block fifty hits.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Also, how is <strike>marrying</strike> marrying Annette any kind of solution to this? Are you insane? That would just make her problem worse! The old man is against it too, for once, though his reasons are different than mine. He seems convinced she</em>
  <em>’s a spy that Cornelia planted because she thought I’d vouch for her, which I suppose makes some sense, but Annette can’t possibly be a spy when she’s such a terrible liar.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Just don</em>
  <em>’t do or say anything stupid. A tall order for you, I know.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Felix</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>“I’m sorry, Felix,” says the old man with a sigh. “I know she was your friend from school—”</p>
<p>Felix winces at the use of past tense.</p>
<p>“—but we can’t rule out the possibility that she might be a spy.”</p>
<p>He crosses his arms and scowls, though he feels very much like a petulant child who can’t have his way when he does. “I rather doubt that, Father,” he says through gritted teeth. “Have you spoken with her yet? She’s not a spy.”</p>
<p>“She killed…many of our own troops, Felix,” his father reminds him. “Whatever her motives, and whether her professed ones are true or not, we can’t just…let that go.”</p>
<p>“I know,” he admits. He glares at the conference table, as if burning it to cinders with the heat from his gaze will quell the guilt and disgust and frustration mingling in him.</p>
<p>“But she’s right,” his father continues, heedless to Felix’s inner turmoil. “We can’t simply ransom her back to her family whether they’ve openly sided with Cornelia or not. She’s too dangerous.”</p>
<p>Felix’s fingernails dig into his arm, if only to keep himself from grabbing his sword. “Then what else do you propose we do?” he demands. “Surely you won’t just…kill her.” Even as the words leave his lips his heart skips a nervous beat.</p>
<p>“No, that won’t do much good either.” In a rare show of human emotion, his father buries his face in his hands and sighs. “What do you think, Gustave? She’s your daughter, isn’t she?”</p>
<p>“I do not acknowledge a traitor to the Kingdom as such,” Sir Gustave says in his low, ponderous voice.</p>
<p>Felix levels his glare at him. “Bold words for someone who defected to the Church,” he mutters under his breath.</p>
<p>His father shoots a sharp glance at him, but Felix feels no remorse over this. “Then you do not believe Miss Dominic’s reasons for her treachery?”</p>
<p>“Intention is meaningless where action doesn’t follow,” Gustave pronounces. “I understand why you may find my dismissal of her reprehensible, however”—his gaze darts to Felix before flicking away—”so I ask that you not take my opinion into account.”</p>
<p>Felix’s fist falls against the table, so sudden both men - of varying degrees of irritating - flinch. “Are <em>you</em> suggesting we kill her then?” he bursts out. “Your own—”</p>
<p>“Felix,” his old man cuts him off, “for the goddess’ sake.”</p>
<p>“I know she…killed many of our own,” he says in a feeble attempt to modulate his own tone and sound something akin to reasonable, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t consider why. If her reasons are true, then she was just trying to survive, like any of us.” Well, like him, at any rate; he doesn’t doubt his old man would die if he could find a Blaiddyd to die <em>for</em>.</p>
<p>“That may be so,” his father concedes, to his surprise, “so I think for now we will leave her be.” He raises an eyebrow at Felix, his gaze discerning enough he resists the urge to squirm. “Do watch what you say to her while we consider her fate, won’t you? I know you’re eager to trust her, but it would still be prudent to treat her as if she is a spy.”</p>
<p>Felix dismisses himself not long after that. His father’s conclusion still doesn’t sit right with him, not when he knows he’s to blame for Annette’s predicament, and maybe that’s why his feet steer him in the direction of her room and why he knocks on her door after ignoring the guard’s almost suspicious glance.</p>
<p>“Who is it?” Annette calls from inside.</p>
<p>“It’s me,” he replies. “I, uh, I have to talk to you about something.”</p>
<p>“Then come in,” she says. “You’d probably come in anyway…”</p>
<p>He ignores the accusation in her voice - there are worse things she can accuse him of, up to and including eavesdropping on her singing - and opens the door. Inside he finds her sitting on the floor, her skirts a puddle around her and with books and all manner of stationary surrounding her. He halts outside her…circle and points at an ink stain in the carpet. “This is new, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Pink tints her cheeks, and she jerks her head around. “Yes,” she admits, terse. “I tried to clean it, but it…took.”</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s not the worst damage done in the castle, and we can always cover it with a rug or something.”</p>
<p>“Worse damage?” A spark of curiosity lights up her eyes, and Felix finds himself wanting to indulge it.</p>
<p>“There’s a, um, scorch mark in the dining hall when my brother thought it would be a good idea to practice a Fire spell indoors,” he explains. His chest twinges at the memory, but at the same time a smile prods at his lips. “Then there’s the scratched up furniture in my room when the weather was too bad to go out to the training grounds.”</p>
<p>“What are you, a cat sharpening its claws?” Annette wonders, though a smile alights on her face.</p>
<p>Her expression makes him feel curiously buoyant, and he sits cross-legged on the floor outside her circle of books and notes. “What are you up to anyway?”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, just studying, I suppose,” she says, shrugging. Her brow furrows, any trace of levity gone from her, as she flips a page in one of her books. “Not much else for me to do since I promised Lord Rodrigue I’d…cooperate.”</p>
<p>“I thought you…graduated in Great Tree Moon,” Felix says, quirking an eyebrow at her. “Or was it Lone Moon?”</p>
<p>Annette’s eyes are sharp on his face. “In Lone Moon, actually,” she says. “How did you know I graduated?”</p>
<p>Now it’s his turn for heat to rush to his face. He turns his face away from her, clearing his throat, and says, “Just a guess, I suppose.”</p>
<p>To his relief, Annette seems to accept his reply for fact, though not without the barest hint of a frown. “Even if I did graduate,” she says, “it’s not like I should just <em>stop</em> studying. There’s so much I don’t know that would be useful to learn, like healing, or—or dark magic.”</p>
<p>Felix scoffs, unable to keep the disgust off his face. “Isn’t that a perversion of Reason?”</p>
<p>“Oh, so you did retain a bit of what I helped tutor you in?” Annette says, her tone lighter.</p>
<p>“Why do you sound so surprised?” He crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. “Your little songs for memorizing your notes made it easy.”</p>
<p>She covers her face with an arm. “Felix…stop.”</p>
<p>“What? Why?” he wonders. He reaches for her arm to tug it away from her face, if only because he’s curious about what expression she’s making.</p>
<p>“Nothing, you’re just so…infuriating,” she accuses him. She throws her arms up in frustration then, a sigh escaping her. “What brings you here anyway? Surely you have better things to do than chat with a hostage?”</p>
<p>There it is again, that…tone of defeat he hates. His fingers, resting on his thighs, curl into fists, and he confesses, “My old man thinks you’re a spy for Cornelia.”</p>
<p>The quill slips from Annette’s hand, more ink splattering on the carpet, but Felix barely notices for the way her face falls. “Oh, well, I guess that’s not such an illogical conclusion to make, is it?” she concedes. She clasps her hands together in her lap. “Maybe that’s for the best in case there are any spies in your household. If they hear that and take it back to her, she can’t very well hurt my family just because she heard I surrendered…can she?”</p>
<p>Felix wishes he could offer some reassurance, some word that tells her she needn’t worry about anyone but herself and her survival, but all he can do is say, “I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“Do you think I’m a spy, Felix?” Her eyes flit to his face, sharp but worried. “I’d understand if you did, considering…everything.”</p>
<p>“No,” he says, “I don’t. I think you’re…in a bad situation.” <em>Thanks to me, </em>he thinks, but the words stick in his throat. “I want to help you,” he continues, “but I don’t know how yet.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to,” Annette tells him. “I got myself into this mess, so I’ll have to find a way to get myself out.”</p>
<p>Felix swallows his guilt, swallows his trepidation, in an effort to muster what he needs to tell her. He sighs and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling, because he can’t find the wherewithal to look her in the eye before he admits, “This isn’t your fault, Annette.”</p>
<p>“How can you say that?” she says, sounding almost tearful. “I’m the one who stayed in Fhirdiad where Cornelia could force me to fight for her against the Kingdom.”</p>
<p>He shakes his head. His heart pounds against his ribs with as much force as a horse’s hoof knocked into them just a few weeks ago. “It’s not—you’re not—” He cuts himself off with a frustrated hiss before gritting out, “When I saw you one last time before leaving, I…thought about asking you to leave with me.”</p>
<p>Annette’s breath hitches. “You—”</p>
<p>“And then I didn’t.” He buries his face in his hands; he can’t bear to see the reproach, however deserved, on her face. “If I had,” he explains, his voice low and muffled, “you might’ve agreed, and you would’ve been spared all…this.”</p>
<p>When she doesn’t reply, he chances a glance at her.</p>
<p>His chest tightens when her abject shock morphs into a scowl. “I’m—”</p>
<p>“You <em>left</em> me,” Annette snaps, “and you—and you—you could’ve just—” She bolts to her feet, unsteady for a moment with her skirts whipping around her, but she finds her footing before he can mirror her. “I-I—<em>Felix</em>.” She grabs her inkwell from the floor, but as she raises it - to lob it at him, he assumes - she seems to reconsider. Her face twists, but he doesn’t know if it’s with anger or sadness.</p>
<p>Either way, it hurts him to see. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t dare reach for her. “I’m sorry, Annette,” he says. “I’ll make it—”</p>
<p>“Just go away,” she says, something in her voice breaking even as she turns away from him.</p>
<p>“I—”</p>
<p>“<em>Go</em>!” she insists. “Don’t come back until you have something <em>useful</em> to tell me.”</p>
<p>When he leaves her room, her accusations ring in his ears and even the memory of her songs can’t drown them out.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <em>Guardian Moon, 1184</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Ingrid,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I need your help.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>House Galatea is officially neutral, correct? Whenever you fight with us, you always pose as a Fraldarius knight, so there</em>
  <em>’s less (though not nonexistent) risk that it’ll backfire against your family. Well, I have a favor to ask, though I would prefer to ask it in person. And before you ask, yes, it has to do with Annette.</em>
</p>
<p><em>I</em><em>’m afraid she doesn’t…trust me at the moment, which is about what I deserve, though I’d rather not explain. I can’t believe she’s a spy like my old man does, but I need to find some way to move her from Fraldarius, further away from where Cornelia’s real spies can try to get to her and before they can try besieging us when the weather improves. I don’t doubt Cornelia herself knows of her capture, but there are certain complications other than my father thinking her a spy and Sir Gustave, the bastard, refusing to trust her that make it difficult for her to move more freely, which is where I need your help. Let’s just say you may reunite with Annette before that foolish reunion of </em> <em> <strike>Dimitri</strike></em><em><strike>’s</strike> </em> <em> the boar</em><em>’s comes to pass.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Thank you, and take care.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Felix</em>
</p>
<p><em>P.S. If you breathe or write a word of this to Sylvain I will tell him what you said of him having an </em> <em>“ample bosom” last time you had too much to drink. (I hate you for making me write that.)</em></p>
<hr/>
<p>“The reports are that the Dukedom’s making preparations to launch a siege against us by springtime,” drones the scout, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if Cornelia made a move sooner.”</p>
<p>“Can those…metallic beasts of hers even move while there’s still snow on the ground?” Lord Rodrigue wonders with a frown on his lips.</p>
<p>“By all accounts, it looks as if they’re intended to defend Fhirdiad from, well, from us, Your Grace,” the scout offers.</p>
<p>“I see,” says his father, though he still looks worried. “Whatever the case is behind those things’ origin, we’ll have to find some way to fight them in the future if we’re ever to free Fhirdiad from Cornelia’s tyranny. What do you think, Felix? Felix?”</p>
<p>Felix jumps, jerked from his thoughts. “About…oh, um, I don’t know,” he says. “They sound like a problem for later. It’ll be a…while before we have the capability to retake Fhirdiad.” Even as he says it his gut twists with discomfort, remembering Annette alone and isolated there where Cornelia could take advantage of her, and he can’t even begin to guess what’s become of Mercedes.</p>
<p>“We still need to think ahead,” his father says. “You’re right, there isn’t much we can do beyond holding our ground, especially while we still search for His Highness—”</p>
<p>Felix scoffs (ignoring the tightening in his chest), but the old man ignores him.</p>
<p>“—and before we have him as a rallying point.”</p>
<p>He sighs and says, “We shouldn’t need the boar.”</p>
<p>“What’s a kingdom without its king?” his father challenges.</p>
<p>“A…dom, I don’t know!” He throws up his hands with a hiss of frustration. “That’s a question to ask after the war, not before we win it.”</p>
<p>“And what if we can’t win it without Dimitri?”</p>
<p>“Then why are we fighting when he’s dead?” Felix demands. Before his father can berate him for causing a scene - in front of the scout; how ironic, how hypocritical - he bolts to his feet and storms out of the conference room, intent on doing something <em>useful</em>.</p>
<p>He doesn’t watch where he’s going, too busy fuming, and maybe if he paid more attention he would’ve found himself at the training grounds or his own quarters rather than outside…Annette’s. But here he stands, never mind that she refused to speak to him the last time he tried to engage her, and that the only time he’s heard her voice in the last few weeks was when he passed outside her door - by chance, he insists - and overheard a few snatches of songs.</p>
<p>He pounds on her door, ignoring the guard posted outside yet again - they ought to be used to him acting like a damn lovesick <em>puppy</em> - while his heart mimics the rhythm as he awaits Annette’s response or lack thereof.</p>
<p>“Who is it?”</p>
<p>Well, Felix supposes she can’t possibly hate him more than she already does, so he turns the knob and shoves open the door.</p>
<p>Annette stands atop the plush armchair, a broom in her hands that she holds out before her like a spear the instant her gaze lands on him. “Oh,” she says, “it’s you. Of course it’s you.”</p>
<p>Her rejection stings, but he tries not to let it show on his face when he wonders, “What are you doing up there?”</p>
<p>“Cleaning,” she says.</p>
<p>“By sweeping the ceiling?” He gapes at her. “Who brought you a broom?”</p>
<p>“Your father is very kind and didn’t hold me possibly being a spy against me when I asked him for one,” Annette informs him.</p>
<p>“My…father?” he echoes lamely.</p>
<p>“He’s visited a few times,” she tells him. She jumps down from the chair - Felix’s heart leaps into his throat watching her - and leans on the broom. “Not for any real reason since he’s not trying to get information out of me; he just asked me if I’d…” Her face flushes, and she avoids his gaze as she mumbles, “He asked if I’d bewitched you somehow.”</p>
<p>His stupid heart stutters in his chest at the same time he covers his face and groans. “What did you tell him?”</p>
<p>“I told him I wouldn’t be in this mess if I had.”</p>
<p>Felix dares to look at her again, but she’s still not looking at him. His pulse rushes with anticipation, because he…<em>can</em> help her, if she lets him, but that’s not the only reason he’s here. “Can I ask you a question about Cornelia’s…weapons?”</p>
<p>“You can,” Annette says, “but I can’t promise I’ll know the answer.”</p>
<p>“Do you know of those…metal Demonic Beasts she has in her control in Fhirdiad?” Felix wonders. “We’ve heard rumors about them here though we’ve yet to encounter them in battle since they sound cumbersome to move. Do they have any weaknesses?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” she admits. “I’ve never seen any for myself since I was never…stationed at Fhirdiad, but they’re heavily armored, so I’d guess they’re vulnerable to magic.”</p>
<p>“Then maybe by the time we fight some,” Felix says, “we’ll have you on our side again.”</p>
<p>The barest hint of a smile flashes across Annette’s face before it falters. “Maybe,” she says. She turns away again, which seems a dismissal, but then he adds:</p>
<p>“Your father should be returning to Fraldarius by next week. Would you want to see him?”</p>
<p>Annette stiffens, her knuckles whitening as she grips the broom tighter. “I doubt he’d want to see me since…since.”</p>
<p>Felix wishes he could contradict her, but considering he’s had the displeasure of seeing Sir Gustave far more often than she has…well, he’d be lying. So he holds his tongue.</p>
<p>“You can go now too, Felix,” Annette says. “I don’t want your pity just because you feel bad for leaving me in Fhirdiad.”</p>
<p>Her words now stab him through the gut as intensely as any accusation she ever paid him. He wishes they can revert back to her silly Academy insults, or when he could tease her without any guilt, or avoid her because of the unfamiliar feeling stirring in his chest rather than for the reproach he finds in her eyes.</p>
<p>But he won’t leave her this time.</p>
<p>“I know you’re not a spy,” he begins, “but we know that there are definitely…others around, even if we haven’t identified them yet.” When Annette turns her head towards him ever so slightly, it emboldens him to continue, “Cornelia probably has spies everywhere in Kingdom territories, so it wouldn’t be that difficult to spread a few rumors so she won’t have a reason to hurt your family.”</p>
<p>Annette’s breath stills, but when she faces him again her eyes are wide and…hopeful. “What…are you talking about, Felix?”</p>
<p>“I think I have a plan for you to disappear, at least until we’re ready to retake Fhirdiad.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <em>Great Tree Moon, 1184</em>
</p>
<p><em> <strike>Boar</strike> </em> <em> Dimitri,</em></p>
<p>
  <em>I</em>
  <em>’ve never bothered mincing words with you, but now that I’m putting a pen to paper I’m oddly reluctant to say what’s on my mind even if you’ll never hear or read it. I just hope that you knew before you died what people were willing to do and give up for you. What right did you have to demand that sort of loyalty when you couldn’t even fight for your own survival?</em>
</p>
<p><em>Well, I won</em><em>’t waste anymore time writing a letter to a dead man. I never did this for Glenn, so why would I bother for you? But if you are somehow alive, you’d better show yourself by your own damn reunion </em> <em> <strike>because I refuse to fight for a dead man</strike> </em> <em>.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Felix</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Are you cold?”</p>
<p>“I’m fine, as I’ve said about…five times by now.”</p>
<p>Felix grumbles, “I only count three.”</p>
<p>Annette snorts but doesn’t contradict him. Still, she huddles under her hooded cloak, which doesn’t conceal her trembling.</p>
<p>It’s early spring, and they stand atop the tallest tower in the castle while a northern wind tugs at their clothes. It’s colder than Fhirdiad, and certainly colder than Dominic, to the point that patches of ice slip up the most absentminded of patrolmen walking along the castle walls and and snow still covers the ground except where workers shoveled it away to carve footpaths through the castle courtyards and grounds.</p>
<p>Annette steps a little closer to him, hovering in the vicinity of his body heat without actually touching him. He crosses his arms to keep from reaching for her and pretends that he doesn’t feel the nip in the air and that his own face isn’t likely red and wind-burned.</p>
<p>“Can she even fly in this wind?” Annette wonders. “Especially with a-a passenger?”</p>
<p>“It’s Ingrid,” Felix reminds her. “If anyone can, it’s her.”</p>
<p>She bites her lip but concedes, “Well, if she has your confidence, then I definitely believe it.” She shoots a sideways glance at him then and asks, “Are you sure this will work?”</p>
<p>“No,” he admits, “but it’ll be safer for you to move away from any possible fighting while you can’t afford to fight back.” Dread coils in his stomach, tight and heavy. “I don’t doubt we’ll be besieged here within a moon.”</p>
<p>He flinches when something touches his arm, but when he glances down it’s only Annette’s hand hovering over it. “Oh, then just, um, you stay safe too, all right?”</p>
<p>It’s the kindest thing she’s said to him since he…confessed what he did - or <em>didn</em><em>’t</em> - do when he last saw her in Fhirdiad, and though he doubts he deserves her forgiveness with so much still at stake, he can’t help the stirring of hope in his chest.</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine,” he promises, not that it’s a promise he should make lightly in the middle of a war. “Worry more about anyone who thinks they can fight against me.”</p>
<p>To his surprise Annette laughs. “That is the…stupidest thing I’ve ever heard even from someone who thought he could take on the Death Knight while a student.”</p>
<p>His face warms, so he covers it with a gloved hand and grumbles, “Shut up. I mean it.”</p>
<p>“I know,” she concedes, and now, when he raises his head, she frowns with the slightest trace of a furrow in her brow that he wants to smooth away. “I mean it when I say be careful too. You still have to, um, make up for leaving me behind in Fhirdiad, you know!”</p>
<p>“I will,” he says, though it’s not really all he wants to say. Any other word he can offer sticks in his throat when he properly faces a wide-eyed Annette.</p>
<p>“What’s wrong now?” she asks, her eyebrow quirking.</p>
<p>“I, um—”</p>
<p>“Oh!” she exclaims then, a smile breaking out across her face as her gaze travels over his shoulder.</p>
<p>He turns to follow where she points before his eyes alight on a lone Pegasus, its wings flapping as it descends towards their tower.</p>
<p>The Pegasus lands in a gust, extending its wings before tucking them against its sides. Ingrid raises a hand in greeting before dismounting.</p>
<p>“Could it <em>be</em> any colder?” she complains.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Felix deadpans. “I could’ve asked you to come in winter.”</p>
<p>“It might as well still be winter,” Ingrid retorts with a shudder. “I always hated it here in winter.” But then she lays eyes on Annette.</p>
<p>Annette waves, a tentative smile on her lips. “H-hello, Ingrid. It’s nice to see you again.”</p>
<p>Ingrid grins. “And you, Annette!” The two hug, something brisk but warm that leaves Felix burning and irritated. “I heard about—well, Felix explained everything to me. You don’t mind staying hidden in Galatea for the next year and a half, do you?”</p>
<p>“Well, if you teach me to fly a Pegasus in the meantime,” Annette offers, “it probably won’t be so bad.”</p>
<p>“Deal,” Ingrid says. “Let’s go. I know it’s cold in the skies, but the quicker we can be off, the better.” She retreats to mumble something to her Pegasus and rearrange her saddle to seat two riders.</p>
<p>Annette turns to Felix then, something almost…hesitant in her face, which bothers him since she’s never so hesitant towards <em>him</em>. “Well, um, you’d better be at the Millennium Festival too,” she says. “If not, I may never forgive you for that either.”</p>
<p>“I-I know,” he says. “I’ll be there.” He has a reason besides a promise to a dead prince - a dead friend - now.</p>
<p>“Good, well! I’ll just…go—ah!” She gasps when he finds the courage to grab her elbow and tug her back before she can walk away again.</p>
<p>His arms fit snugly around her back, but before he can regret it and let her go, she returns his embrace. Her hood slips off her head, and he buries his nose in her hair as she sinks into him, a warm buffer against the changing winds.</p>
<p>“I’m…sorry, Felix,” she mumbles then, her voice muffled against his shoulder but still so low it sends a shiver down his spine. “I shouldn’t have blamed you for…this. I just wanted someone easy to blame when I really blamed myself, that’s all.”</p>
<p>Felix holds her tighter. Her breath hitches, but she grips the back of his coat. “Blame Cornelia,” he tells her, “or blame the Empire.”</p>
<p>“I c-can,” Annette agrees in a tremulous voice, her hair brushing his skin when she nods. “I just feel so…useless since I can’t fight back.”</p>
<p>“It won’t be for long,” he reassures her, though he’s not even sure himself. “By the time we meet again, you can fight on our side.” <em>Like you should</em><em>’ve been all along,</em> he thinks but doesn’t say. It’s easy to regret what he never said or did, but now he has to make up for it however he can.</p>
<p>Annette pulls away - he resists the urge to pull her back - and offers him a slight smile. “I’m counting on you then.”</p>
<p>He’ll make sure her faith isn’t misplaced this time.</p>
<p>Despite his reluctance, he lets her go when Ingrid very audibly and very pointedly clears her throat and insists they need to leave soon if they want to cover a good distance before dark. Felix doesn’t bother noting that the wind is in their favor, if only because the safest place for Annette to be now is as far away from Fraldarius and the army bearing down on them as possible.</p>
<p>He just hopes that Annette (and Ingrid) dismiss any redness in his face as windburn.</p>
<p>Annette makes to follow Ingrid away from him but hesitates. She spins around, and before he can react she approaches him again and grabs his coat collar. He leans down without thinking, only for her to brush her warm lips against his cold cheek.</p>
<p>“Thank you for not killing me, Felix,” Annette says with a smile he might call teasing if he could remember how to think. She lets go of him at last, her eyes meeting his for a heartbeat before she turns away.</p>
<p>Felix stands on the tower long after the lone Pegasus with its two riders disappears into the clouds, long after he grows accustomed to the fresh ache in his chest and the wind numbing any lingering heat on his face, until the old man finds him and tells him he should try writing Annette a letter now that she no longer resides in the den of the same beast they fight.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <s>did you catch the hug bookends</s>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thank you for reading, and let me know what you thought!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <s>I'm actually going on a pretty long trip for two weeks so it'll be at least that long till I post the last part. BUT rest assured it is complete!</s>
</p><p>
  <s>but until then, hope you liked Part I! more pain to come in Part II &gt;:)</s>
</p><p>Edit: So because of weird ao3 posting quirks i think there might have been some miscommunication but Part II was Chapter 2 of this fic, so this fic is 100% complete, no sequel (except the sequel is Azure Moon. or the handful of post-AM netteflix fics i've posted. pick your poison). I apologize for the confusion</p></blockquote></div></div>
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